By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
August 5, 2016
For years, when arguing with morons who refuse to acknowledge the advanced metrics revolution in sports, I have compared these out-of-touch mouth breathers to the folks who deny climate change.
Like, when 98% of the scientists in the world are telling you something, ya should probably listen considering most of us haven’t picked up a science text since college. And I have felt the same way about sabermetrics as I have tried to ingratiate myself with that movement over the last decade plus.
Now, I will be the first to admit that I don’t know everything about analytics so I rely on people far smarter than me in an attempt to keep up with the world of sports mathematics.
And we all know that climate change deniers come exclusively from one political party/worldview in this country. Conservative Republicans who are almost unanimously bible-thumping morons who believe that Jesus died for your sins and pray to an imaginary myth in the sky.
But more and more, I believe there is a direct correlation between sports fans who refuse to embrace the sabermetric era and their religious and political affiliations.
(This is not to say that ALL religious people hate math. The dude editing this article is a Christian who accepts sabermetrics. I am just saying if someone is REALLY anti-math, I am guessing they fall to the right on the political spectrum. Or they are black, according to Michael Wilbon.)
The same anti-intellectualism that has given us Donald Trump as a Presidential candidate for one of the two major political parties in this country might be the cause of the ass-backwards way Ken Holland has run the Detroit Red Wings for the past decade.
In the last month or so I have been approached by a couple of people who espoused this theory. Now, I never knew Holland’s religious and political proclivities until the last few weeks (even though I had my suspicions based on how he has been operating this organization).
But Holland isn’t some Jim Caldwell character who proselytizes from the podium during press conferences so I wasn’t sure about my theory until recently when some friends of the Holland family shared this information with me.
I was told by a couple of sources that Holland is a fundamentalist nut who was extremely controlling of his two college-aged daughters. I also talked to some friends of the Holland “girls” and was told it was known that Ken forbade them from having premarital sex. Apparently, were also some odd Curt Schilling-esque Facebook messages from the Holland offspring.
Now, I wouldn’t care about any of this stuff if I didn’t believe there was an intersection between Ken’s political/religious beliefs and his management of the Red Wings. And I am totally convinced there is an overlap.
I am not sure what explanation there could be for Holland’s absolute disregard for advanced metrics unless it correlates with his archaic worldview. I am guessing that when you (A): ignore that your best defenseman statistically is Brendan Smith and then you allow him to be BENCHED for the first two playoff games and (B): believe the world is 6,000 years old and zdinosaurs never roamed the planet, it may be a pattern.
Because make no mistake about it. The Detroit Red Wings are one of the least intellectual, least math-based, least forward-thinking organizations in the NHL. I would wager and say they are THEE WORST when it comes to this kind of stuff.
The franchise basically doesn’t have a sabermetrics department while their Olympia Entertainment counterpart down the street recently hired an executive from Apple (Jay Sartori) as the Tigers’ Senior Director of Baseball Operations and Analytics; promoted analytics devotee Sam Menzin to Vice President of Baseball Operations and engaged Christopher Long for proprietary coding.
(The fact that sabermetrics don’t seem to influence Brad Ausmus’ on-field strategy is another story entirely.)
And any sabermetrics department the Wings currently have is total window dressing, not unlike when Menzin was the only analyst in the Tigers’ front office and his reports were ending up in Jim Leyland’s trash bin. Menzin’s job description actually included updating a rudimentary chalkboard/whiteboard in Dave Dombrowski’s office.
I shit you not.
And from what I have learned over the last few weeks, I am convinced that Holland’s religious beliefs seep into his managerial ethos. The ridiculous loyalty to guys like Dan Cleary. The asinine signings of Drew Miller and Luke Glendening that go against every mathematical equation you can conjure.
His FAITH that forwards in their mid-30s won’t age horrifically, nevermind all empirical and analytical evidence. His dogmatic insistence in continuing to run this team in the exact same fashion he has in the past.
These are all tenets of staid, CONSERVATIVE thinking and the antithesis of progressive thought.
So if you are a Red Wings fan pining for a Tigers-like complete overhaul of the front office’s thinking, it ain’t coming. As long as Sean Hannity Ken Holland is in charge of this organization, we will be living in the Dark Ages.
Because CORSI, Fenwick, CF% and OFZO% are as foreign to Holland as allowing his daughters to live their own lives free from Taliban rule.
Ken Holland has built a wall around Joe Louis Arena, alright. And it’s keeping any cognitive or analytical thought out of the building. Not to mention Andreas Athanasiou, Anthony Mantha, Xavier Ouellet and Ryan Sproul.
(You can follow the writer of this piece on Twitter @JeffMossDSR. Also, you can join in on the discussion of this article on Facebook by clicking here.)
